Samuel Coleridge - The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Thekla. Exactly at this time?

Countess. He now knows all.

‘Twere now the moment to declare himself.

Thekla. If I’m to understand you, speak less darkly. 5

Countess. ‘Twas for that purpose that I bade her leave us.

Thekla, you are no more a child. Your heart

Is now no more in nonage: for you love,

And boldness dwells with love — that you have proved.

Your nature moulds itself upon your father’s 10

More than your mother’s spirit. Therefore may you

Hear, what were too much for her fortitude.

Thekla. Enough! no further preface, I entreat you.

At once, out with it! Be it what it may,

It is not possible that it should torture me 15

More than this introduction. What have you

To say to me? Tell me the whole and briefly!

Countess. You’ll not be frightened —

Thekla. Name it, I entreat you.

Countess. It lies within your power to do your father

A weighty service —

Thekla. Lies within my power? 20

Countess. Max Piccolomini loves you. You can link him

Indissolubly to your father.

Thekla. I?

What need of me for that? And is he not

Already linked to him?

Countess. He was.

Thekla. And wherefore

Should he not be so now — not be so always? 25

Countess. He cleaves to the Emperor too.

Thekla. Not more than duty

And honour may demand of him.

Countess. We ask

Proofs of his love, and not proofs of his honour.

Duty and honour!

Those are ambiguous words with many meanings. 30

You should interpret them for him: his love

Should be the sole definer of his honour.

Thekla. How?

Countess. The Emperor or you must he renounce.

Thekla. He will accompany my father gladly

In his retirement. From himself you heard, 35

How much he wished to lay aside the sword.

Countess. He must not lay the sword aside, we mean;

He must unsheath it in your father’s cause.

Thekla. He’ll spend with gladness and alacrity

His life, his heart’s blood in my father’s cause, 40

If shame or injury be intended him.

Countess. You will not understand me. Well, hear then!

Your father has fallen off from the Emperor,

And is about to join the enemy

With the whole soldiery —

Thekla. Alas, my mother! 45

Countess. There needs a great example to draw on

The army after him. The Piccolomini

Possess the love and reverence of the troops;

They govern all opinions, and wherever

They lead the way, none hesitate to follow. 50

The son secures the father to our interests —

You’ve much in your hands at this moment.

Thekla. Ah,

My miserable mother! what a death-stroke

Awaits thee! — No! She never will survive it.

Countess. She will accommodate her soul to that 55

Which is and must be. I do know your mother.

The far-off future weights upon her heart

With torture of anxiety; but is it

Unalterably, actually present,

She soon resigns herself, and bears it calmly. 60

Thekla. O my foreboding bosom! Even now,

E’en now ‘tis here, that icy hand of horror!

And my young hope lies shuddering in its grasp;

I knew it well — no sooner had I entered,

A heavy ominous presentiment 65

Revealed to me, that spirits of death were hovering

Over my happy fortune. But why think I

First of myself? My mother! O my mother!

Countess. Calm yourself! Break not out in vain lamenting!

Preserve you for your father the firm friend, 70

And for yourself the lover, all will yet

Prove good and fortunate.

Thekla. Prove good? What good?

Must we not part? Part ne’er to meet again?

Countess. He parts not from you! He can not part from you.

Thekla. Alas for his sore anguish! It will rend 75

His heart asunder.

Countess. If indeed he loves you,

His resolution will be speedily taken.

Thekla. His resolution will be speedily taken —

O do not doubt of that! A resolution!

Does there remain one to be taken?

Countess. Hush! 80

Collect yourself! I hear your mother coming.

Thekla. How shall I bear to see her?

Countess. Collect yourself.

Table of Contents

To them enter the DUCHESS.

Duchess (to the Countess). Who was here, sister? I heard some one

talking,

And passionately too.

Countess. Nay! There was no one.

Duchess. I am grown so timorous, every trifling noise

Scatters my spirits, and announces to me

The footstep of some messenger of evil. 5

And can you tell me, sister, what the event is?

Will he agree to do the Emperor’s pleasure,

And send the horse-regiments to the Cardinal?

Tell me, has he dismissed Von Questenberg

With a favourable answer?

Countess. No, he has not. 10

Duchess. Alas! then all is lost! I see it coming,

The worst that can come! Yes, they will depose him;

The accurséd business of the Regenspurg diet

Will all be acted o’er again!

Countess. No! never!

Make your heart easy, sister, as to that. 15

[THEKLA throws herself upon her mother, and enfolds her

in her arms, weeping.

Duchess. Yes, my poor child!

Thou too hast lost a most affectionate godmother

In the Empress. O that stern unbending man!

In this unhappy marriage what have I

Not suffered, not endured. For ev’n as if 20

I had been linked on to some wheel of fire

That restless, ceaseless, whirls impetuous onward,

I have passed a life of frights and horrors with him,

And ever to the brink of some abyss

With dizzy headlong violence he whirls me. 25

Nay, do not weep, my child! Let not my sufferings

Presignify unhappiness to thee,

Nor blacken with their shade the fate that waits thee.

There lives no second Friedland: thou, my child,

Hast not to fear thy mother’s destiny. 30

Thekla. O let us supplicate him, dearest mother!

Quick! quick! here’s no abiding-place for us.

Here every coming hour broods into life

Some new affrightful monster.

Duchess. Thou wilt share

An easier, calmer lot, my child! We too, 35

I and thy father, witnessed happy days.

Still think I with delight of those first years,

When he was making progress with glad effort,

When his ambition was a genial fire,

Not that consuming flame which now it is. 40

The Emperor loved him, trusted him: and all

He undertook could not but be successful.

But since that ill-starred day at Regenspurg,

Which plunged him headlong from his dignity,

A gloomy uncompanionable spirit, 45

Unsteady and suspicious, has possessed him.

His quiet mind forsook him, and no longer

Did he yield up himself in joy and faith

To his old luck, and individual power;

But thenceforth turned his heart and best affections 50

All to those cloudy sciences, which never

Have yet made happy him who followed them.

Countess. You see it, sister! as your eyes permit you.

But surely this is not the conversation

To pass the time in which we are waiting for him. 55

You know he will be soon here. Would you have him

Find her in this condition?

Duchess. Come, my child!

Come, wipe away thy tears, and shew thy father

A cheerful countenance. See, the tie-knot here

Is off — this hair must not hang so dishevelled. 60

Come, dearest! dry thy tears up. They deform

Thy gentle eye — well now — what was I saying?

Yes, in good truth, this Piccolomini

Is a most noble and deserving gentleman.

Countess. That is he, sister!

Thekla (to the Countess). Aunt, you will excuse me? 65